100 and feels- ODE to mama

This is apparently my 100th post. I didn’t forget to post on Friday or yesterday. I am having a rather emotional weekend. So i decided to go over the emotions and get over things before coming on here.

Anyway, I want to dedicate this post to my grandmother. She is no longer with us but I feel her presence and love every single day.

On Friday, I broke down because I was missing her more than usual and memories of her flooded my mind and led to a breakdown. She passed away when i was 14, in 2007, and somehow on Friday it stung a little too much. I guess you cannot really put a time stamp on how long one must mourn a loved one. You cannot really tell when you will be “over it”. I mean can you really get over losing someone? Its been almost 9 years and the pain still hits me like its that Monday morning when I heard of her passing.

Yesterday I read my friend Dorian’s post on death, right after my very emotional Friday. She wrote about death, but not in that dark way. My favorite few lines from her piece are

     With this, I would encourage us to live. Live all you can, help anyone who needs something within your power, show the people that you care about that you love them. Hold no grudge against anyone. Impact and touch lives so that when your time is near,you would have no regrets, you would shed no tears of pain, anguish and regret about the things you left undone, about the words you left unsaid, about the dreams you killed with procrastination, about the love you refused to show, about the people you failed to forgive, about the lives you failed to ignite with hope and the hearts you failed to infuse with passion and love.

It made me cry again and unraveled everything I had felt on Friday. But then after a while, I stopped crying and realized how for the 14 years I had had my grandmother in my life she had shown me what love is. She showered me with so much love that sometimes I smile thinking of her. She taught me so much. I am an avid reader because I would always see her and my granddad sitting on the stoep drinking tea, her Five Roses and him Rooibos, both immersed in books. This then meant I would be forced to find something to read.

She baked for me with every academic or non academic achievement. I knew that with every A on my report card, a rich chocolate cake was waiting for me. I would give anything to have her by my side. To have her read my writing, and tell how i got selected for cool writing internships and how i sometimes feel this Mathematics degree isn’t really worth it. I know though that the love she gave me in those 14 years will never compare to any. For that I am grateful to God. He gave me a superwoman who loved me with every bone in her and even in her last days would tell me she loved me.

Her final words to me, on Sunday, right after church me and my mum had rushed to the hospital before the lunch time visiting time was over to go see her, she had noticed I looked sad and all she said was
“be strong ngwanaka, I am getting better”. Truth is, she did look better, maybe that was God trying to make my last image of her one where she smiled and told me she was okay and that she loved me.

I cannot say that losing someone gets better. There are days, like Friday, where I want to pack up and get on a bus home to go to the graveyard to talk to her. There are other days though, were I come across a headscarf or a dress and I smile because I remember her wearing it and smiling.

This is to mama, your memories are still treasured, your love still felt and the dreams we both shared still being pursued.

Mido